Do All Christmas Traditions Actually Come from Christmas? (And Other Holiday Tradition Mysteries) | 42
Call Me Curious
Audible
4.4 • 555 Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2022
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
So what’s up with eggnog? And why is there a tree in my living room? Christmas is overflowing with traditions. Things you do, eat, drink, sing and wear. Things you look forward to all year long. (Unless, of course, you’ve been naughty!) But why? Most Christmastime rituals are things we just go with. No questions asked, right? But, hey, this is Call Me Curious! So… we’re gonna ask!! Join Nikki and Malone, with the help of “Christmas Past” podcaster Brian Earl and journalist/writer/historian Alex Palmer as they unpack Christmas traditions here and around the world. Please pass the Italian fried eel!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From Wondry, I'm Nikki Boyer, and this is Call Me Curious, where every week I'll get to the bottom of those funny, strange, puzzling, or just got-a-no questions you have. |
| 0:16.9 | And we'll tell you the best we can what the answer is. |
| 0:21.0 | Because I've got 21 questions. |
| 0:23.6 | I've been 21 guessing you could teach me a lesson. |
| 0:28.3 | Call me curious. |
| 0:32.1 | Call me curious. |
| 0:34.2 | Call me curious. |
| 0:35.1 | So tell the truth Hey everybody. |
| 1:02.2 | Hey everybody. Hi, welcome to the show and happy holiday. I love this time of the year. |
| 1:07.4 | So no matter what holiday you actually celebrate, there are traditions that you follow. |
| 1:11.9 | So I celebrate Christmas and I follow most of those traditions. Like I wake up to presents under the tree. I stay in my pajamas until someone says, are you still wearing your pajamas? |
| 1:17.1 | I bake gingerbread people, but I don't really eat them because ginger ain't my jam. I'll take a |
| 1:22.2 | swig of eggnog and then immediately remember, I don't even like that. And I hang mistletoe and trick my husband into standing |
| 1:28.3 | under it. Just, well, why not? Why not make out? And so it turns out that I love Christmas, |
| 1:33.3 | but I don't love everything that comes with it. And this holiday season, I kind of started wondering |
| 1:38.9 | why? Like, why do we do all of these things? Like, where do these traditions come from? Have they been around as long as |
| 1:46.1 | Christmas? So I started searching, and I found out there are a ton of Christmas traditions and |
| 1:52.4 | traditions change from country to country. So, like, if you're in Germany and you've misbehaved, |
| 1:58.0 | you better watch out for Crampus. He's a demon goat with fangs. It's terrifying. |
| 2:02.6 | And if you find yourself on the Philippines, then check out the giant lantern festival. |
| 2:06.7 | Or if you're in Caracas, Venezuela, you're probably going to mass on roller skates. That sounds like a blast. |
| 2:13.7 | So once I started to dive into Christmas traditions, I knew I had today's call me curious question. |
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